“We have starved together, Princess,” he answers gently.
“Then the story that the people tell is true?”
“Quite true.”
With the skeleton creatures between them they are silent a wavering moment. Then with a mute caress of their unkempt necks he says: “Be kind to Sergius Hotzka’s only friends. Good-night, Elizaveta Repine.”
“Repine!” she had forgotten that.
“Is it farewell?” she asks him blindly.
“Farewell!” he repeats.
The horses whinny piteously as the gates close behind him; then turn with dumb, questioning eyes to the pallid woman beside them.
Brutes that they are they tremble at the sight of that countenance, quivering and terrible.
“Wait,” is her husky whisper.